


He Would Not Kneel Again

by deathrae



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Solas POV, Trespasser Spoilers, dai spoilers, there's a lot of parallels between Lavellan and Mythal if you're looking for it really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 11:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5288897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathrae/pseuds/deathrae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He did not want a body. She asked him to come. He left a scar when he burned her off his face." - Cole</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Would Not Kneel Again

He thought it, back then, when he ripped out his _vallaslin_ with magic and veilfire. He thought the words in a soundless howl to which he gave no voice, the words like ice, like clean-burning fire, preserving a silence that was only broken by the hollow sound of his own blood dripping off his face, splashing red and slick on the crystalstone.

Never again. Never again would he kneel at the feet of an elven woman. No more.

Mythal had called him from sleep and his eternal dance with the spirits. Had bound him to her, like the others but special. Her most dear servant. Her trusted warrior. Her singular bodyguard. Her most precious _Fen’din_.

There was a time he had relished the honor. Borne the name with pride. But the eons had passed and he had seen so much. Had heard so much, with his ears pricked to winds carrying the wails of the blood-marked slaves as they wept for their poor fortune.

Her private kindnesses, her mercy and justice, made the truth of it, of the others, all so much harder to bear, and he had burned her off his face in defiance of everything they held dear. When he washed sleep from his eyes in the morning, now, before returning to his paintings and his research in _Tarasyl'an Te'las_ , it was a matter of reflex, habit, perhaps, that he still let his finger stall on the mark above his eyebrow where the veilfire had left a scar. A reminder, that his fight was not finished. His struggle had only barely begun, and he would struggle alone, as was his right, his birthright when he took his new name upon his shoulders like a mantle. Like a curse.

A name screamed from library halls and cheered from valley temples.

 _Fen’harel_.

Traitor, betrayer.

He hid his face in a towel to dry his skin and peered over it at a mirror. How had it all gone so wrong? He’d had more than enough time to dwell on the Fall, but this new batch of mistakes still had him reeling. The orb. Corypheus, the cursed magister with a power no Tevinter usurper should have.

The Inquisitor.

 _The Inquisitor_. Chief of his mistakes. Not for her mark, though that had been error enough.

By the end, during the rebellion, he had come to think of Mythal as a bulwark, as a hesitant ally, as a friend... but even then. No more would he kneel, he swore, more than once. _No more_ , he had vowed, as he slid into the Fade for this, his longest sleep in _uthenera_.

Yet here he was. The Inquisitor, a Dalish with hardly more sense in her head than the rest of her foolish, misguided slave-kin. That was what he thought at the beginning, when she was merely “Herald,” merely “lost _da’len_ of Lavellan.”

But she listened. By all the spirits in the Fade, she listened. She asked him questions, her ears pricked forward to better hear his answers, and she _stayed_ , no matter how long he droned on. Once he had deliberately wandered off-topic, avoiding the actual answer to her question, just to see if she would stay. She did, well into the night, while the torches burned low and the rest of Haven went to sleep.

She surprised him at every turn. Patient, soft-spoken, quick to act but never without thought. She balanced caution and proactivity like the most skilled accountants of Val Royeaux, ready with an explanation no matter how he sniped at her with his words when she had acted opposite his wishes. Even if he did not always approve of her choices, that she always had a reason soothed him. She had a good head on her shoulders. A wisdom her years and upbringing could not, should not, have granted.

When he was gone, she would lead the Inquisition with a strong, rigid morality. He had so little confidence now in any organization, after his own had collapsed beneath him and after witnessing every cult, faction, and government that rose and fell during his sleep, but her...maybe. If anyone could, he supposed it would be her.

If anyone could wrangle a human organization, make it bend to ethics and morals beyond the hindsight of their politics, it would be her, with him at her side.

But that could not be. He could not swear himself to this Andrastian Inquisition, no matter the identity of its leader.

And yet.

She sat at the edge of her bed, his Anchor weighing heavily on her, more so than usual. Three rifts she’d closed today and it showed. There were creases around her mouth that were new and fit misshapen and wrong on her face. There was a dimness to her eyes he hated to see. Her shoulders slumped under the weight of the mark, her hand resting across her leg.

He stood at the top of the stairs, looking at her. The pulsing of the Anchor tugged at his soul, but sympathy pain tugged at his heart.

“ _Ir abelas, vhenan_ ,” she whispered on a long, painful exhale, as if even that phrase took all her breath. “I am... I am not well.”

“ _Tel’nuvenin_ ,” he murmured, stepping closer to stand before her. Her gaze flickered up slightly, never rising above the hem of his tunic. “Though I can do little to dull these words, _ma vhenan_ , I assure you: you look as terrible as you must feel.”

She smirked faintly, a raw, hollow chuckle escaping her. He hesitated only for a moment before he slowly dropped to his knees, sitting back on his heels to look up at her face. If she saw the symbolism for what it was, for how he meant it, she was better at the Game than he thought. As it was, her face was utterly impassive. She raised her gaze to look at him, the corners of her mouth drawn down into a weary frown, her eyes tired and sad.

“I don’t want to die without this being finished,” she said, her voice so worn and quiet as to be almost soundless.

His jaw tightened and he sorted through a scramble of thoughts.

 _You will not be the second killed by something I have begun. I refuse. I defy the will of any who would make me_ harellan _twice over._

“That won’t be necessary,” he said finally, brushing hair behind her ear and leaning to rest his forehead against hers. “No matter what the mark does in the coming months, you will finish this. That, I believe in, more so than anything else.”

“I hope so,” she breathed, leaning against him.

With her eyes shut, her ears trembling, and her fingers tangled into his own, he whispered to her in ancient words he knew she would not recognize.

_“Here before you I pledge this vow, to be kept above all, from the heart to the end of Elvhenan, from Arlathan city of spires to the outermost edges of my reach, I will serve this purpose: I **will** see this through._

_“In sorrow, victory; in celebration, honor; in rebuilding, remembrance.”_

It was all he could offer her. At least until he had rebuilt the world that should have been hers.

He would kneel for no other woman, but he would rebuild Elvhenan in her memory.


End file.
